


summer cannibals

by pilzformig



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Accompanying Playlist, Alcohol, Drinking, Everyone Is Gay, F/F, Falling In Love, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Humanstuck, Internalized Homophobia, Lowercase, M/M, Marijuana, Multi, Mutual Pining, POV Multiple, POV Second Person, Pining, Recreational Drug Use, Rose Lalonde Is Fucking Feral - freeform, Summer, Urban Exploration, author hasnt read the epilogues, but not aggressively so. but that'll come, fake rituals, i just like to wax poetic about summer as a coping mechanism because i hate it so much, no beta we die like men, parallel love stories, set in australia, set in early 2000s, somehow ive been in the homestuck fandom for four years and this is my first hs fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-28
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:47:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23357233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pilzformig/pseuds/pilzformig
Summary: the sun soaks everything in heat, the bricks, the asphalt, your friends’ bodies, so that everything is its own heat source, a miniature sun, infecting everything else with more heat, more and more.aka the fic where rose and kanaya, terezi and vriska, and karkat and dave fall in love simultaneously in the city in summer, and they are gay and happy and i love them.
Relationships: Dave Strider/Karkat Vantas, Rose Lalonde/Kanaya Maryam, Terezi Pyrope/Vriska Serket
Comments: 8
Kudos: 28





	1. i.

**Author's Note:**

> finally i write homestuck fic. i just wanted to write something happy and nice, and have a whole atmosphere to go with it. these six are so in love... im soft and gay
> 
> here's a suggested tracklist to go with it!
> 
> i. _summer cannibals_ patti smith  
> ii. _sprawl ii (mountains beyond mountains)_ arcade fire  
> iii. _the suburbs_ mr little jeans  
> iv. _new americana_ halsey  
> v. _golden_ fall out boy  
> vi. _summer haze_ manual  
> vii. _disparate youth_ santigold  
> viii. _summertime clothes_ animal collective  
> ix. _bitter sweet symphony_ the verve  
> x. _bite your lips_ andrew applepie  
> xi. _parking garage_ tommy bravo
> 
> edit 12 jan 2021: i predicted heat waves /j

your name is terezi pyrope. the sidewalk is searing hot on your bare feet, but you’re so used to it at this point you barely feel it anymore. 

the sun soaks everything in heat, the bricks, the asphalt, your friends’ bodies, so that everything is its own heat source, a miniature sun, infecting everything else with more heat, more and more. 

you walk back to you and vriska’s apartment.

the rubber end of your cane hasn’t melted on the pavement yet, but it’s probably only a matter of time.

you have to decide whether to take the stairs or the elevator. you’ll be hot either way; hot from walking up the stuffy stairs, or hot from being stuck in the stuffy elevator. you take the stairs. your feet stick on the linoleum.

☀☀☀

your name is vriska serket. you hear the front door open and look up to see terezi come in. there’s a sheen of sweat on her skin, and she comes and flops down on the couch beside you, upside down, so that her head is hanging over the edge by your knees, and her knees hook over the back. she throws her arms over her head and groans. her hair is limp from the heat. 

“it’s so fucking hot,” she says.

“it’s summer,” you say, reaching over to retrieve a dorito from a packet beside you. she hears the rustle of the packet and opens her mouth, and you place the dorito in, her unnaturally sharp teeth closing around it. your hand hovers for a moment above her mouth, but you move away without doing anything. 

you’ve known her pretty much your entire life. you went to kindergarten together, and after terezi hit you with her cane for stealing one of her chocolate bars, you’ve been inseparable. as soon as high school ended you moved in together.

at this point you feel sure that the two of you are so tuned into each other, so familiar with the other, that you’re practically the same person. you wonder if she sensed what you did with your hand just then.

☀☀☀

your name is rose lalonde. you’re lying flat on your back in a public park, eyes closed against the glare of the sun, head in your (uh) friend (?) kanaya’s lap. 

you met kanaya a couple years ago at a party held by vriska, who at that time was only john’s friend. (how he and vriska ended up friends only god knows). you were fairly drunk and you saw her and, with the bravado that comes with alcohol, went up to her and made conversation. 

she was pretty and witty and eloquent and probably fairly stoned, and you were hooked immediately. you swapped phone numbers.

and now you’re sitting in a park with your head in kanaya’s lap and the grass tickling at your thighs. you’re wearing a fairly elaborate mall goth get-up: stripy socks and fishnet arm warmers, black lipstick, a ripped up band tshirt. it’s way too hot for it and you literally want to die, but you’re rose lalonde, so you suffer through it.

you were rereading twilight, but the book was now abandoned on the ground next to you. kanaya sits still for a while, and then you feel her fingers start carding through your hair.

she’s never done that before.

you hold yourself very still. your lips open slightly (your eyelids stay closed though, the sun is way too bright for anything else). she keeps threading her fingers through your hair, humming softly.

you think maybe this is heaven.

☀☀☀

your name is kanaya maryam. currently you are threading your fingers through your friend (???) rose’s hair. her head is in your lap.

her lips are slightly open. you think maybe this is heaven.

☀☀☀

your name is dave strider. you’re expecting your sister rose over any time now. she’s meant to be coming early to help set up for some shindig that’s happening at your flat tonight. you don’t know. people are coming over. there probably won’t be alcohol. there will be food and your friend/roommate/whatever karkat getting (rightfully, maybe) pissy over something.

rose is half an hour late. it’s 5:30, and it’s not getting dark, obviously, it’s summer, but clouds have rolled in, and instead of blistering hot it’s sort of muggy. it’s still hot though; the shitty fans in your shitty apartment haven’t been off for days, probably, the noise of them blending in with the squawks of the crows and the hum of the generator outside your window.

you sigh.

you hear your shitty doorbell ring, and you yell “come in,” and rose walks in, looking like she rolled around in a hot topic and an op shop before coming here. you’re pretty sure this is her own irony shtick, but she’s so deadpan about it that even you have a hard time telling. ironic or not, she looks way overheated, and as soon as she comes in she collapses on a couch and starts removing spiked bracelets and chokers and whatever else.

kanaya’s there too, because of course she is, but she’s at least appropriately dressed for the weather. 

she says, “hello, dave,” and you tip a mock hat at her and flick rose’s upper arm. she bats at you, as much as she can as she’s trying to remove some heavy looking skull earrings.

“are we the first ones here?” she says.

you look at her quizzically and say, “first- rose, you were meant to be here to help me set up.”

she looks around. there’s some chip packets and fizzy drink bottles sitting half-heartedly on the table. not a lot else. “set up what?”

“fair point.”

“also, why can’t karkat help.”

“ok, also a fair point,” you lean backwards to yell, “KARKAT,” at the bedroom door. (the flat’s technically a one-person, so there’s only one bedroom, which you share. in separate beds, obviously).

“WHAT,” he yells back.

“COME OUT HERE AND HELP SET UP.”

“WHAT THE FUCK ARE WE SETTING UP FOR.”

“oh my god,” you mutter under your breath. you start as karkat opens the bedroom door, all 4 foot 9 of him silhouetted against the sun shining through the window behind him. “did no one know what was meant to be happening this evening?”

“what is meant to be happening this evening?” karkat says.

“i don’t know! look, rose and kanaya are here! vriska and tz are meant to be coming as well!”

“why?” says karkat, squinting his eyes.

“what do mean why! we’re hanging out!”

“oh ok. sure.”

“great,” you say, “i’m going to cook something or whatever.”

☀☀☀

your name is karkat vantas. your friend/roommate/whatever dave has disturbed you from the novel you were reading in your shared room, so now you’re settling down on the tiny couch next to kanaya (rose has vacated the couch in favour of sitting on the ground and stretching).

you watch dave idly as he gets the gas stove going, boils water, pours a packet of pasta in. you look at the way the sun illuminates his blond hair like a halo around his head, and ok, that was fucking lame, but really, it’s almost glowing-

“karkat?”

you blink and look at rose.

“kanaya just asked you how you’re going at work?”

you grimace. “same old really. annoying customers. barely pays rent. the usual."

☀☀☀

your name is rose lalonde. you’re lying on your back on the floor of your brother dave’s shitty apartment when finally the doorbell rings. kanaya stands up to get it, and then vriska and terezi are there, settling into kitchen chairs since the couch and most of the floor are already taken up. the extra bodies make the apartment even hotter.

“so what are we doing,” asks vriska.

“fuck dude i don’t know,” says karkat, suddenly angry, “dave’s cooking dinner. we’re hanging out. we’re _friends_.”

“jeez, someone’s had a bad day,” says terezi, throwing a chip in the direction of karkat’s voice. it lands short of him, predictably, and quick as a snake you dart a hand out and grab it, popping it in your mouth.

kanaya makes a face.

“oh my god, dude,” karkat says, “off the ground?”

you shrug.

☀☀☀

your name is vriska serket. you and everyone else are sitting at the tiny dining table eating pasta. the minute it was done cooking, terezi had clamoured and whined about how hungry she was, so you ate practically immediately. the pasta’s too hot.

karkat and dave don’t have enough chairs for everyone, but someone had the bright idea of dragging the couch up to the table. you and terezi and kanaya are squeezed onto it, and you are incredibly aware of the way the side of your body is pressed against terezi’s.

the conversation is energetic. work, college, the searing, sizzling, evil heat. no one but kanaya bothers to finish their mouthful before they say anything. so you sit there, grinning and talking, eating too hot pasta, terezi’s bare thigh sticky against yours.

☀☀☀

your name is dave strider. your guests have all gone, the washing up is all done, and you and karkat are sitting on your balcony sharing a beer. your legs dangle over the edge between the bars. it’s past 9, and the sun is finally going down.

thankfully, it seems to be a cooler night tonight. the beer came cold out the fridge, but it’s warmed up a little now, what with the time you’re taking to drink it. there’s only a sip left now. karkat’s hands are clutching onto the bars, and you snake the hand holding the beer out and between them too, and then around to nudge at his hands with it. he seems kind of zoned out, and at your touch he starts and unclasps his hands, almost knocking the bottle out of your hands.

“woah, dude,” you say.

“oh shit, sorry,” he replies, and awkwardly clasps a hand around the bottle. right over _your_ hand.

he gives a small yelp and jerks his hand away, and you’re shocked enough by its sudden arrival and departure that your own hand loosens. you watch the bottle together in silence as it falls sixteen storeys to the footpath below. it seems like it falls for an eternity, until it finally connects with the concrete with a faint smashing sound, and karkat winces.

“ah, shit,” karkat says, a little tremor in his voice. “i’m sorry, dude, i-”

“it’s ok,” you say. “there was like, a sip left, and we didn’t hit anyone.”

“yeah,” he says shakily, and side-eyes you quickly, gaze sliding over your face. “i’m- i reckon i’ll turn in.”

“ok,” you say. “sure.”

you sit alone on the balcony a while longer, watching the sky darken to black. when you go back into you and karkat’s room, he’s facing the wall. you’re pretty sure he’s still awake, but he doesn’t acknowledge you.

☀☀☀

your name is terezi pyrope. you’re walking back to you and vriska’s apartment. the sun is down, and although you can’t see the lack of light, you can feel that slight lack of heat, the mugginess of night without the piercing heat of day. it’s heavy on your skin.

vriska follows you up the stairs to your door, and stands behind you as you turn the key in the lock. you can feel her breath on your neck. you shiver as you open the door.

☀☀☀

your name is kanaya maryam. currently, you’re over at rose’s apartment; she lives with her friends john and jade (and you live with your sister porrim). honestly though, you think, with the amount of time you and rose spend at the other’s apartment, it’s surprising you haven’t found a place together yet. 

rose is reading. she’s swapped twilight out for some other vampire novel, while you idly look over her bookshelf. you’ve been here a million times, done this a million times, you’re as familiar with her books are you are with your own, rather smaller collection. it’s all dumb vampire smut and anthologies of short horror stories and books on deep-sea creatures or alien conspiracies or serial killers. 

you smile fondly as you run a finger down a spine ( _the occult significance of blood_ by rudolf steiner), and then you throw yourself backwards onto rose’s bed, not looking to see where you land. the back of your neck makes contact with rose’s crossed ankles, and she yelps and leans forward to smack you gently with her book. you can practically hear her smile.

“darling,” you say (you’ve been calling her that since you met her at that party, it doesn’t mean anything), hands on your stomach, touching at each fingertip, “shall we perform a ritual tonight?”

rose snorts, gets her hands under your shoulder blades, pushes you with a falsely laborious air until you’re sitting up. “madame,” (she only calls you this in jest), “what an excellent idea.”

she’s been tinkering with the occult and esoteric since she could read, and one of the first things she dragged you into was a half-baked ‘ritual’ – candles and chanting at some ungodly hour, jade and john trying not to laugh in their black hoodies.

actually, it was the first time you had seen her after the party. she had gotten your address from vriska through john, and had turned up at your window at 1am or something. you should really have been more freaked out, you think, but instead you were rather excited. besides, she had looked gorgeous in the light of the moon, in a velvet dress and black lipstick.

ever since then, you perform ‘rituals’ every now and then. the instructions you follow are everything from medieval woodcuts rose found scans of at the library to dubious posts on obscure internet forums, red text on a black background and promises of blood.

tonight, you’re following something from a book you found in a dusty second hand bookshop. you were out with rose when you found it, hidden behind the other books on the shelf, skull on the front overlaid with melodramatic purple text: _RITES OF SUMMONING_. you had bought it for rose immediately, and she had laughed and thanked you and the brush of her hand against yours when you handed her the book was surely more magical than anything it contained.

☀☀☀

your name is rose lalonde. currently, you and kanaya are ‘sneaking’ (you have to call it that, to give it the taste of an adventure, but if john or jade caught you it’s not like they’d do anything worse than laugh and ask if they could join you) out of your apartment. you walk to a playground down the road, head to the covered area by the bathrooms. it’s fairly hidden from view of the road, so it’s a spot you’ve used a couple of times for shady goings on past midnight

you put down the required equipment, and begin to set up. kanaya is cool beside you. she’s a wisp of smoke in the humid air, a slip of silk, some kind of forest spirit. you catch yourself staring at her and go back to the pentagram you’re chalking onto the asphalt (oh how the parents will start at it in the morning!) before she can too.

you scold yourself for being so euphuistic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bruh i dont know when th fuck ill have the next part up im sorry. yell at me if its been months or smth idk.


	2. ii.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it continues

your name is dave strider. you wake up in you and karkat’s shared room. the sheet you sleep under is sticky and gross with sweat, and for a second you panic and kick your legs around, trying to escape. all that accomplishes is getting your legs tangled up in the sheet. you panic even more, and then slump back into the bed. you lie there for a moment, breathing heavily, and then slowly extricate yourself from the sheet.

only when you’re sitting up, legs hanging over the side of your bed, do you realise that karkat isn’t in his bed. this isn’t that unusual, he swings wildly between getting up early and sleeping in till past noon, but still, you frown. that.. incident last night, whatever it was, must have really affected him.

you’ve been good bros for a while now, even if when you first met you made fun of each other a fair amount (what can you say, karkat’s just so easy to piss off). but you’d be lying if you said there wasn’t anything else there. bubbling under the surface, under all the jokes and irony and ‘bro haha that was so gay’. you try not to think about it, it makes your stomach roil, just a little bit, gives you a sick fear in the back of your throat. you don’t know, maybe it’s the same for karkat. 

you get up to have a shower. karkat’s sitting on the balcony, facing out towards the city.

☀☀☀

your name is terezi pyrope. you’re asleep right now, because as if you’re going to get up earlier than you have to, and it’s not like you have anything on today.

☀☀☀

your name is vriska serket. terezi is in her room sleeping, but you got up early. you’re childish and bored, and you’ve filled up a large mug with water, as cold as you can get it. it’s like 9am, and you open the door to terezi’s room and grin (there aren’t locks on any of the doors in your apartment, and neither of you would use them if there were).

you walk over to terezi and unceremoniously dump the water onto her sleeping face.

terezi wakes immediately, screaming and flailing her arms, and you laugh in abject mirth. 

“vriska!!!!!” she screams, and you can hear the smile in her voice on that last syllable. she picks up the empty plastic water bottle by her bed and throws it at you, and it whizzes past your ear with surprising accuracy. probably a fluke.

you keep laughing, and terezi bursts out too, pushing her hands through her wet hair.

“oh my god, you bitch, don’t you have anything better to do?” she asks.

“absolutely not,” you reply.

“that wasn’t even clever or anything. you just live to torment me.”

“yeah, but you love it,” you laugh, “come on out, i made eggs.”

☀☀☀

your name is kanaya maryam. you wake up lying next to rose in her bed, both of you still wearing the clothes you were in last night. you look at her. she didn’t even bother to remove her makeup, and her black eyeliner is smudged and messy. you smile fondly. god she’s beautiful.

you lie back and watch the sun rise through the crack in the curtains.

☀☀☀

your name is karkat vantas. it’s afternoon, and you’re back out on the balcony. you still feel kind of weird about whatever happened between you and dave last night out here. which is stupid, obviously, because all that happened was that you touched hands and then you had to go and make it fucking weird.

it’s hot as fuck, naturally. it’s 2 in the afternoon and you’re sitting in direct sunlight on boiling hot concrete. you think if you touched the balcony rails they would burn your hand right off.

dave comes out and stands in the doorway to the balcony, looking out over the city. you can tell he’s squinting, even with his shades on. 

“you had lunch yet?” he asks, and only then do you realise how hungry you are.

“shit, no,” you reply.

he nods without looking at you and says, “i’ll fry some bacon.”

you stay out there while he cooks, just watching the city, feeling the sun on your skin.

he comes out after a couple minutes, a plate in each hand. he hands you one (eggs and bacon on toast) and sits down beside you. you can see the bacon still sizzling, so you let it sit for a minute before you delve in.

you sit in comfortable silence and eat, looking out at the sun-flushed sky rise buildings together.

☀☀☀

your name is terezi pyrope. you’re lying flat on your back in a public park, on a picnic blanket next to vriska. the grass isn’t wet or anything, it’s just itchy as fuck without anything to shield you from it.

you’ve elected to hang around and do nothing outside rather than inside because your only fan broke and it’s getting into evening so it’s kinda cooler outside anyway. after an hour or so of sitting and chatting with vriska, kanaya and rose turn up. they come to sit with you and set down some food: chips, a punnet of strawberries.

you spend a little while more sitting and talking with them, and then they move on, leaving you and vriska alone together again. they left the rest of the strawberries. you’re lying flat on your back and you jab at vriska and open your mouth, and she gets the message and feeds you a strawberry.

☀☀☀

your name is vriska serket. you’re sitting in a public park, feeding terezi pyrope strawberries. something is fluttering in your stomach. you feel excited and terrified all at once.

you feed her another strawberry. and then you put a finger to terezi’s lower lip.

everything is very still.

you brush the finger along her lip, feeling the chapped skin underneath and terezi’s shaky breaths.

everyone else in the park may as well not exist. the world consists of you, terezi, and your finger on her lip.

and then she opens her mouth and bites your finger and her teeth are so unnaturally sharp and sound floods back into your world.

you yell and she cackles. you flick her nose.

neither of you say anything about it.

☀☀☀

your name is rose lalonde. in an unusual turn, you and kanaya ended up in your own apartments tonight, away from each other.

you’re bored (probably because you’re not with kanaya), and instead of reading or researching or knitting or whatever, you’re halfway through a bottle of luke-warm white wine. you really shouldn’t be making a habit of drinking alone, you think, so in lieu of actually being around people, you decide to call kanaya.

you’re slouched in your bed, head propped up on pillows, bottle in one hand and phone in the other. in your inebriated state, pressing the buttons on your phone is profoundly satisfying. it doesn’t take many rings for kanaya to pick up.

“hello rose.”

“hi kanaya. i’m drunk.”

you think you can hear a note of worry in her next words, but there’s fondness as well.

“is this really what you must resort to when not in the presence of my company?”

“oh i don’t know. maaaybe.”

kanaya hmphs. “that’s not particularly healthy, is it.”

you pause.

“maybe what’s. what’s not healthy is uhh the amount of time we spend together, milady.” you tease. “all day and most nights. i can’t think what i did before i met you.” there’s a note of sincerity there.

kanaya takes a moment to answer.

“drunk yourself into a stupor?”

“hey, alcoholisism. alcism. it runs in the family. i think. but i think you could be right. i don’t think i drink as much as i used to.”

“rose, do you want me to come over?”

“hmmm no it’s ok. i just wanted to hear your voice.”

fuck, you must be drunk if stuff like that is spilling out. you sigh, take another gulp of wine. god it tastes like shit.

“thanks kanaya. ‘m gonna go now.”

“goodbye, rose. please take care.”

you hang up, toss your phone to the bed. it snaps shut on impact. you screw the bottle closed, swing your legs over the side of your bed, and make your way to the living room. you collapse on the couch between john and jade, who are watching some nature documentary on tv. 

kanaya’s ‘please take care’ echoes around in your head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> helo gays there should just be one more chapter! hope u enjoyed <3


	3. iii.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warnings for animal death and weed for this one gang. 
> 
> cannot believe its taken me close to a year to get this last chapter up... this summer hasn't been as hot as the last one (thank god, no bushfires). anyway i just finished rereading homestuck so i had to finish this fic!! i hope u enjoy !!!!

your name is vriska serket. you’re lying on top of the covers on your bed as terezi spins around on the chair by your desk. god it’s so fucking hot. 

“terezi,” you say. she stops spinning. “we should go out tonight,” you continue. “like, climb some buildings or something. trespass on a construction site. i’m so fucking bored.”

terezi’s lips slowly curl into a sharp grin. “oh we haven’t done that in ages! let’s do it.”

“hell fuckin’ yeah.”

terezi reaches into her pocket and pulls out a lollipop, ripping into it with her stupid sharp nails. you try not to watch as she sucks on it: she may not be able to see you looking, but you’re sure she could feel your gaze, somehow. and, god, you don’t want her to think you’re creepy or anything (your stomach lurches at that thought), but the way she’s licking it is- well. you don’t think you could look away if you wanted to.

☀☀☀

your name is terezi pyrope. the lollipop you’re eating is sweet and so so sticky in the heat, and you can’t help but hope that vriska is watching you (if you’re being honest, that’s the reason you’re eating it here and now in the first place. god this is cliché). there’s a feeling in your throat that you can’t quite place, some sickly mixture of excitement and fear. you let your tongue linger on the lollipop for a moment longer than what is strictly necessary, and you swear you hear vriska inhale kind of louder than usual.

☀☀☀

your name is dave strider. you’re with your brother dirk right now, picking up weed from him. 

the bus on your return home is stuffy and you have trouble holding onto the bus strap thing (whatever it’s called) above your head, your hand slippery with sweat. everyone on the bus looks tired of the heat and tired in general. good thing you’ve got your shades on; no one else can see the shiny-dark circles under your eyes.

as soon as you open the door to your apartment, karkat’s yelling assaults you.

“DAVE THERE’S A FUCKING DEAD CROW ON THE BALCONY I DON’T KNOW WHAT HAPPENED I GUESS IT FLEW INTO THE WINDOW OR SOMETHING BUT IT’S DEAD NOW AND WE NEED TO GET RID OF IT BEFORE IT STARTS FUCKING ROTTING-”

“bro,” you interrupt, “calm down.”

“EURGHH, i swear i can smell it from HERE,” he continues, hunching his shoulders and wrinkling his nose up.

“relax,” you say, laughing. “i assume you want me to deal with it?”

you put down your shit and you and karkat walk to look through the glass doors at the balcony. sure enough, there’s a mangled crow sitting there, black feathers shining in the sun. what little blood is there has already dried to a dull brown colour.

“i swear it’s fucking rancid already, ugh,” karkat says from behind you. he feels so close. you shiver involuntarily and then breathe in and turn on your heel. your face ends up a couple of centimetres from karkat’s. he blushes, or he’s red from the heat or something, and, embarrassingly, you can feel a blush rising in your cheeks too.

you exhale a little shakily. “just. getting a plastic bag.”

karkat looks frozen in place, and he takes a second to snap back to life. “right,” he croaks.

you get a plastic bag.

karkat’s blush hasn’t gone down when you turn back. you open the door to the balcony and hunch down by the crow. honestly, you kind of love dead things. you look into the creature’s glassy black eye and cock your head to the side. pretty fucked up way to die, you reckon, flying into a glass door.

you pick it up with the plastic bag, feeling a little spasm of disgust go through you as you feel how limp its neck is.

“can you get the door for me?” you ask karkat, and he closes it behind you, grunting with the effort of jamming it shut properly. everything here is so shitty.

he opens the door into the corridor for you as well and accompanies you (without you asking) all the way down the bin in the alley beside your apartment building. you feel pretty weird standing there in the elevator with a dead crow in your hands. 

you and karkat get rid of the blood on the balcony (you hate the feeling of scrubbing concrete, but whatever).

“hey i got some more weed today,” you say. “wanna smoke tonight to take your mind off things?”

“what things?” karkat says. “the stench of rot and the memory of scrubbing blood away?” you laugh. “but god, yeah, that sounds great.”

☀☀☀

your name is karkat vantas and you’ll never get dave’s fascination with dead things but you think you’ll always love him anyway. 

wait.

☀☀☀

your name is rose lalonde. you’re reading idly on your bed, your hands sticky on the cover of the book. your phone buzzes from where its sitting on the covers next to you, and you let the book fall to your chest to answer it. it’s kanaya.

“want to come over for a movie night?” she asks.

“of course. i’ll be right over.”

☀☀☀

your name is kanaya maryam and, although you’ve done this a thousand times before, you’re unreasonably excited to sit on a couch next to your best friend rose lalonde and rewatch ginger snaps.

you spend the next minutes waiting in anticipation, something tiny fluttering in your stomach. this is so stupid. you’ve been best friends for years, had movie nights like this countless times before, spent so much time in each others company people usually just assume you’re dating.

something, inexplicably, in between the hair stroking and the drunk phone calls and everything, has shifted.

☀☀☀

your name is terezi pyrope. you and vriska’s relationship has many things twisted into it: years and years spent together inseparable, love, irritation, more than a few dramas, and crime. vriska shoplifts probably more than she actually buys things new, and you spend your time figuring out loopholes in laws so that even if she were caught, she wouldn’t be sentenced. ‘urban exploring’, so called, is another facet of the stream of petty crime that trickles over the rocks of your relationship. you haven’t gotten caught yet.

you put on jeans and boots, and, holding hands, you head out into the night.

☀☀☀

your name is karkat vantas. you don’t think you’ll ever get tired of smoking weed with dave.

you’re both sitting at the table now, tshirts hanging limp and baggy in the heat as dave grinds the weed and rolls joints. once he’s made a couple, you head out onto the balcony with them and a lighter, and sit down with your legs hanging over the edge. dave lights up, and you watch as the lighter illuminates his cupped hand, making his fingers red and orange, a tiny lantern against the darkening sky. you keep watching as he takes a drag, glancing quickly at his closed eyes (eyelids looking thin and delicate), his lips on the joint, and his neck, stretched as he leans back. then he pulls his hand away, opens his eyes and breathes out, and he’s looking out towards the city, so you keep watching him.

he moves his hand towards you, and you take the joint (the hot brush of his fingers against yours, god, like that night with the bottle), still looking at him as he finishes exhaling smoke and closes his eyes again, leaning his head back as far as it can go. you busy yourself with the joint so that you don’t spend any more time looking at his stupid neck.

the joint’s gone out. “dave, lighter,” you say, putting your hand out. instead of handing it over, he shuffles closer and brings his hand up to light the joint for you. you have a hand holding the joint steady, and he’s unconsciously put a hand on your shoulder as he uses the other to flick the lighter, fingers so close to your lips. it’s intimate, too intimate, and you can hear your breaths and feel your heart beating in your chest, and then the joint is lit and he moves away, and you have to concentrate on breathing in and not coughing. 

you keep smoking, passing the joint back and forth and then moving onto a new one, and soon you’re both pleasantly high, giggling together, a little less inhibited.

☀☀☀

your name is vriska serket. the night air is still hot, dense and heavy against you. there’s a construction site you’ve been eyeing up for a while, you’ve heard that security there is lax, and you’re excited to explore it tonight.

you look up the sheer side of it, metal scaffolding shining dully in the city lights, tarp flapping in the light breeze. the sky above is dark and clear, stars hard to make out because of the light pollution.

terezi’s scary good at climbing scaffolding by now, and insists on it, even though you’re always so terrified she’ll fall. you don’t let her know that, though. you haven’t really had any bad accidents, but god, you’re sure it’s only a matter of time. but you’re young, and reckless, and stupid, so you set off up the scaffolding, terezi first so that you’re underneath her, whatever good that will do. the building isn’t that tall anyway.

you reach the top of it and clutch onto her, exhilarated and ecstatic, but terrified that if you let go of her she’ll be blown off the building by the wind. you let out a loud cackle of a laugh, and it rings through the night air. terezi joins you, screeching along.

you look out over the city, the skyscrapers and apartment buildings and the river, light reflecting in it in vivid stripes. you hope terezi is enjoying the wind on her face.

“come on, let’s go down the other side,” you say. there’s a fenced off area there, inaccessible from other sides, and you’re keen to get down there and take a look around.

terezi makes it down fine, but your foot slips on the last bar of scaffolding, and you crash down. you twist around, expecting to hit the cold, hard concrete, but instead hit terezi front first, slamming her to the ground. you think about how lucky it is that her head didn’t crack against the concrete, and then, quickly, you’re thinking about how you’re draped over her, about how you can feel her chest against yours, her pointy knee against your lower thigh.

you slump down on top of her, all nerves, a pain in your left knee just starting to become apparent “oh my god _fuck_ i’m so sorry,” you get out, before she’s laughing, slapping a hand on your back and leaving it there, electric and solid against you.

“you idiot, oh my god,” she shrieks, and you roll off her and onto the ground next to her, lying on your back and grinning up at the sky.

“you aren’t hurt, are you?” you ask breathlessly, and she shakes her head no and you exhale in relief. 

“what about you?”

“i hit my knee pretty bad against the ground, but that’s it,” you reply. “it’ll probably bruise.”

“should we go home?”

“nah, just give me a moment,” you lie quietly for some seconds, listening to your breathing and the cars whizzing by somewhere.

you slap the ground. “alright, let’s get going.”

she paws at the ground beside you, figuring out where you are, and then gets up and offers you a hand. you let her pull you up. you ease onto your left leg, and there’s a slight increase in pain, but nothing too bad. you don’t think it’s anything serious.

you look around the construction site. in the lights of the city, the dormant heavy-duty vehicles look like great beasts slumbering. after some minutes poking around, you decide to head off. just in time too; for some reason (maybe the two of you shrieking and laughing), security _has_ shown up, and you barely make it over the barbed wire topped fence (you have experience with them now, although the both of you still scratch yourself this time) before lights are turned on and a man comes into the site.

you grab terezi’s hand and run into the dark streets, your knee smarting, going and going until you reach a park, grass scratchy and yellow, the two of you panting and laughing. you’re still holding terezi’s hand even when you stop running, and you keep holding on, you keep holding on until she wrenches her hand free so that she can seize your face and smash her mouth against yours.

you’re in shock, jubilant, high on adrenaline and how she tastes and her hands on your face. you grip the back of her head, keep her against you, and the kiss is bad, uncoordinated and messy and frankly violent, but it’s her, it’s her, it's always been her, and you’re happier than you’ve ever been before.

☀☀☀

your name is dave strider. you’re sitting on the couch drawing (god do you love drawing when you’re high), and karkat is slouched against you, rambling slowly about random shit. he’s warm and solid, and you can feel his hair scratching at the skin on your neck.

you manoeuvre the arm that you’re not using to draw to rest at the back of karkat’s head, slowly carding your fingers through his hair, massaging his scalp, he doesn’t seem to notice, doesn’t falter in his talking, just relaxes against you more. you stop drawing, look down at karkat’s face, fixating on his thick eyelashes, the way the light makes flecks of gold appear in them, the way they move as he blinks, the way- oh. he’s noticed you’re looking at him, is looking up at you now. maybe… maybe he’s just as fixated by you as you are by him. you’ve shifted your gaze to his eyes now, looking at the beautiful colour of them, and he’s looking right back into your eyes, like he thinks the colour of your eyes is beautiful. the two of you lean towards each other at the same time, and his lips are hot and soft against yours.

the kiss is slow, languid, loving, your lips slotted together so that you’re mostly kissing his top lip and he’s mostly kissing your bottom one. it feels amazing, god, how have you never kissed anyone high before oh yeah because you’re not into anyone but karkat but you’re too scared, you’ve always been too scared, but it feels so good, the heat the wetness all of it, all of it, and then you’re pulling away from each other, but not too far away, and he’s saying, “are we like dating?” and you’re laughing and kissing him again and saying, “yes, yeah dude, yeah.”

☀☀☀

your name is rose lalonde. ginger snaps has just finished, and you and kanaya are leaning against each other as the credits roll, shoulder to shoulder, the top of your head nestled by her ear.

you shift your body slightly, and kanaya does too, and she’s so close, and it’s the easiest thing in the world to turn your head as she turns hers and kiss her. 

it’s casual, so casual, like you’ve kissed a thousand times, like you’ve been dating for years and this is just another normal, chaste kiss in your relationship.

it lasts for all of two seconds, and your lips are warm and dry and soft, and then you break apart, and both pairs of warm, dry, soft lips break into smiles.

“i think i love you,” you say.

“i think so too,” says kanaya, and then her smile grows wider as she realises what she’s said and backtracks. “i mean, god, i mean i think i’m in love with you too, not that- i think that you-. god, oh my god,” she says, laughing.

your smile is wider too. “i can’t believe you spoiled this,” you say as you surge forward to kiss her again.

this time, the kiss lasts longer than a couple seconds, and your lips don’t stay dry for long.

☀☀☀

fin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tjank u everyone for reading !! i die for comments <3


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